Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Sketchbook Project 2012 in London

I had a wonderful time ﻿on Monday evening at Canda Water Library looking through the European and Australian entries for the Sketchbook Project 2012. I signed up for a library card and then selected 2 books at a time using the computer. You could choose a local or random selection or search by theme, material or artist. The first one I received using the local search was from someone I know from CQ(below)!! I started chatting with the ladies next to me and we started swapping books that looked interesting. I've looked at sketchbooks using the digital library but it doesn't compare to handling them . The lovely book above had a large fold out centre which just doesn't show up in the digital version and the cut out holes weren't so evident. I enjoyed how the theme was carried over from page to page in both these books

Many books used the paper the ﻿sketchbook came with ( I replaced mine with khardi papers) but a lot of people had stuck drawings or paintings in - even small canvases (above) and copies of ipad drawings (below)

Some people had played around with the format. The mainly textile piece above was in a concertina ﻿with pages of fabric or paper stitched together, a bit difficult to handle without dropping it. The one below (unfortunately not digitised )was just 4 pages (8 sides) Encrusted with layers of metallic stitching it was jewel-like.

Sandra Chapman

There was a bit of a hiatus while the computer crashed but the queue was good-natured and took it in turns to look through the returns pile. I took the opportunity to ask one of the librarians to track down my book which she did. It was good to see it again and several people around me were admiring it which was very gratifying!

﻿The sketchbook I most wanted to take home was a charming, funny, beautifully crafted illustrated story - the voyage of HMS Poodle(above) but I got to take home a souvenir handrawn sticker thoughtfully included in the back.

Even in a relatively short perusal in a couple of hours, there was so much variety and I got so much pleasure from handling other peoples treasures. I preferred those that had a cohesive theme followed through, something I did for my 'Limited Edition' Sketchbook. Seeing so many possibilities has sent me searching through the digital library again (although no substitute for the real thing) giving me several ideas for being more adventurous with Sketchbook Project 2013 .

4 comments:

Margaret Cooter and I ended up there at the same time on the Friday night. It was much more fun to look at the books together. We found a stitched one - like samplers of a sorts but also interacting with pages between, which were black paper.

The random selection was interesting, but it would have been fun to browse and choose as well.

I did ask for some from Berkshire near the end and got Delia's book in the theme of writing on the wall. She had photos of interesting walls and the signage on them.Sandy